CFP: Literature and Social Activism in Canada (1/20/07; 5/27/07-5/29/07)

full name / name of organization:

domenic beneventi

contact email:

domenic.beneventi@gmail.com

May 27, 28 and 29, 2006University of SaskatchewanSaskatoon, Saskatchewan

Panel: Literature and Social Activism

Collaboration, communication, and the language of debate used insocial activism are crucial to the success of any politicized movementthat attempts to shape public opinion. Social activism can beexpressed in a wide variety of forms; writing to newspapers, politicalpressure on elected officials, demonstrations, rallies, streetmarches, essays, proletarian novels, protest poetry, testimonials,graffiti, and more radical guerilla tactics which aim to disrupt thesocial, political, or economic status quo of the nation.

Recent movements of social activism in Canada have employed both oldand new forms of collaboration (pamphleteering, chapbooks, publicperformances, protest stagings, physical occupation, the internet) tobring about concrete changes, particularly within the context ofcontinually shrinking social programs and availability of affordablehousing. Movements such as FRAPRU and ATSA www.atsa.qc.ca use art,theatre, music, literature, poetry, and performance as integralaspects of their social activism.

This panel invites papers that discuss the role of literature andwriting in social activism in Canada. Papers may address theliterature of social activism as well as representations of socialactivism in literary texts.